Gateway Teams

To all of our loyal followers-
We all know that the seed of Christ needs to be spread to those in need. As we do our job in spreading the word of God, we also help to guide these children and give them encouragement to make the seed that the Lord has planted in each one of them grow. As we go through the very few days we have here at Chain of Love, as a team and individually, we are all really coming together to do our best to minister to these children. - From the opposite prospective, the children are also do wonderful things in all of our hearts! - Last week was a week full of soccer and beads!! We´ve all been learning, some slower than others, how to play soccer. It´s really a neat thing to experience. You think when you go on a mission to another country, that it´s about you teaching the people there what you know, when really it´s about them teaching you what they know. It´s really amazing. We have also had a lot of craft classes. Those are always a handful! The kids love making friendship bracelets and bead bracelets! One of the neatest things about the crafts classes was that it wasn´t just a group of girls, there were a lot of the boys that got involved. That was very interesting. We have had a lot of time to really bond with all the kids and I really just want to thank the Lord for this opprotunity that he has given everyone on this team to grow and become more open to the many walks of life that he created for us. As last week came to an end, there was just an amazing feeling of accomplishment radiating off of everyone on campus, including the children. On Friday our team took a trip into a part of Brazil that is known as "Little Italy" of sorts. It was really neat because it wasn´t like you were in Brazil, it was like being in Italy only all the people spoke portuguese. We went to a nice italian restaraunt and then drove around to all the different shops. We met a man who was 94 years old!! His son said the only reason he looked so good was he drank his daily wine, twice a day! :) Then we went to a winery and the adults tasted wine. Of course the under 21ers got grape juice that they made at the winery. It was very very tasty! Much better than Welch´s! We also went to a waterfall and walked behind the water. It was beautiful! After that we went to a few more shops and really had a great bonding experience, I felt, with everyone on the team. Saturday the team went into Campo Bom and just had a day full of shopping. Everyone was a little disappointed that the Indian Market was closed due to rain. Sunday was a good day with the kids! We had a party kind of relative to Super Bowl parties in America. Brazil played in the world cup against The Ivory Coast and won!! Very happy day! We also got the privillage to eat lunch in the families houses before the game. That was very heart-warming. The moment you enter someone´s house, there is just this automatic feeling of acceptance and love! I think it´s wonderful how God puts that quality in all of us, but the people here just do anything they can to express to you how much they care about you even though they may have just met you! It´s just an amazing feeling! Monday was our first day of English as a second language classes. It was really exciting to be able to really be an influence to these children even if it´s something as simple as teaching them how to count or teaching them the difference between red and blue! To see them really catch on and not only tell you they understand but to see that and for them to show you that they listen and they comprehend what you say! It´s very encouraging for us to teach and be taught at the same time! Yesterday was pretty much the same as Monday... EXCEPT FOR! The girls only soccer game! That was something very special to the girls here because it´s usualy mostly the guys that play soccer in the gym. They kind of dominate and the girls don´t really get the chance as often. So they wanted to play Americans versus Brazilians! All of us Americans were scared that we were going to get our butts kicked. Soccer in Brazil is like a religion! Very important! But to the surprise of MANY, AMERICANS WON!!! It was a very nice bonding experience!! Up to today, has been an amazing, very inspiring adventure for all of us! As we begin to bring our mission to a close we just all pray that God will continue to be with us as we start to make our ways home, and to also stay with these children and really inspire them to push on and really have that desire to serve Him and walk with Him. To really just want to be one of His many cities on a hill. Never ceasing to shine for Him! In His holy name!
By - Ashley Rogers, Brazil Gateway Team Journalist, June 2010